


i know i’m not alone (while my love is near me)

by overtureenvelops



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, One Shot, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-23 16:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10722864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtureenvelops/pseuds/overtureenvelops
Summary: "Three weeks, max, barring any setbacks.”Full disclosure, there are setbacks. Only problem is, Grace can't bring herself to care.





	i know i’m not alone (while my love is near me)

**Author's Note:**

> hi hey hello. i've fallen and i can't get up. so here is my usual MO of pretentious character study mixed with domestic fluff because i love grace hanson with all my heart and she loves frankie bergstein with all of hers.
> 
> keep in mind that while this does include most major plot points from s3 (minus gun-gate) it's pretty much off script besides that, so if some stuff doesn't add up, just try to ignore it. enjoy, and let me know what you think!

i.

The first night is difficult. Frankie breathes too loud, moves too much, steals the covers for herself. She talks in her sleep almost as much as she does when she’s awake, and Grace spends half the night staring at the ceiling, trying to piece together a storyline from Frankie’s unconscious mumbles. She’s halfway to taking a pill when she realizes there’s something special to the lack of silence. Something in the inhales and exhales, the movement against the sheets next to her, that makes her pause when reaching for the Ambien.

Something about the crashing waves outside mixed with Frankie’s sleep-bartering over overpriced rutabagas makes Grace pause. Makes her watch the steady rise and fall of Frankie's chest, makes her scoot close enough that their elbows touch underneath the sheets. She endured silence for 40 years, she supposes, and if there’s one thing Frankie’s made her realize in the time they’ve lived together, it’s that she can handle a little noise every once in awhile—that she maybe even likes it a little.

Frankie rolls onto her side, a snore escaping as she kicks Grace in the shin, drawing out a whispered obscenity from the blonde. Frankie sleepily hums in response, her hand upturned and the tips of her fingers grazing Grace’s cheek. Grace inhales sharply, stomach fluttering in a way she doesn’t want to think about, and her eyes focus on the ceiling again.

 _Three weeks,_ she tells herself, _three weeks max._

ii.

Frankie eats in bed. She crunches on crackers and chips and stuffs her face with gummy bears and marshmallows while watching reality shows on her laptop, since Grace had flat out refused to install a TV.

“The bedroom is meant for sleep and sex,” Grace had said. “Not Shark Tank.”

Frankie had found a work-around though, and now she watches bad reality shows every night before bed, shoveling in treats that Grace inevitably rolls around in during the night, waking to crumbs in her hair and butterscotch candies stuck to her thighs. 

Even so, somewhere along the line Grace starts watching too. 

“What, like I have a choice?” she says in response to Frankie's raised brow. 

But really, as she moves toward the middle of the bed to share a pillow with Frankie, eyes fixed on the laptop screen and—oh god—hand reaching for a handful of Goldfish, she finds herself caught in a subtle domesticity. A routine that's easy, no matter how messy.

Her ‘domesticity’ with Robert had been work. Their routine had to be carefully planned out in advance, pencilled into the margins of his calendars and repeated in reminder calls to his secretary. It was a routine that he didn't always care to adhere to, as he disappeared to the firm or his study or the “golf course”, leaving Grace alone at night. His side of the bed would be untouched when she went to sleep and made again when she awoke, and she had trained herself over the years to wake up in the middle of the night just to make sure he slept there at all.

For all the messiness now, at least Grace knows Frankie's there. Can feel her presence, hear it, trust it. Even if the other woman won't quit snacking, or stealing the covers, or whining about not having a TV in the bedroom. Grace tries to think back to what her past self would have thought if she could see herself now, engulfed in candy wrappers while watching television in bed with a woman she used to despise. She says a prayer for her and lets her go, finding comfort in not having to go to bed alone anymore, at least for now.

In the morning, she wakes to cracker crumbs in the sheets and Frankie snoring softly next to her. She orders a new TV.

iii.

They have a nightly checklist. Frankie had made it or, at least, she had dictated it to Grace while hanging upside down off the side of the bed while reading one of Coyote’s old _Ranger Rick_ magazines.

It contains the usual suspects: check the locks, close the windows, leave the downstairs lamp on. But, since it’s Frankie, it also includes things like _‘equip the booby traps!’_ and _‘turn on NPR!’_ and _‘thank the shoes for their service!’_ , which Grace rolls her eyes at but does anyway. If it makes Frankie feel comfortable enough to move back to her own bed someday, she tells herself, she’ll do anything.

Except for the fact that that’s becoming less and less true.

Because if she’s being honest with herself, she sleeps better with Frankie next to her. Like she offers some sort of security that Grace has never experienced before, a consistency that ends with a goodnight and starts with a good morning. And sure, she doesn't love the paint stained coveralls in the same laundry hamper as her Saint Laurent, or her nail polish being used for spur of the moment landscape paintings, or her reading glasses being stolen and used to read the fine print on the back of the pack of off brand Oreos, but…

Frankie draws smiley faces on the fogged up bathroom mirror. 

She brings Grace aspirin when her arthritis flares up, does a courtesy glance away while she tames her bed head so she can maintain the illusion that it was perfectly coiffed even in sleep, delivers a bloody mary to her bedside on the days her heart feels too heavy to get up early. It’s nice and it's natural and it's what Grace always imagined marriage could be–what it should have been, if she hadn’t been stuck the way she was, doing what she thought she was supposed to be doing with a man who couldn't have cared less for four decades of her life.

So Grace turns the lamp on. She makes sure Diane Rehm’s voice fills the living room, checks every lock and says thank you and goodnight to the size 10’s that live just outside the front door. And when she gets upstairs, it's to the smell of patchouli and artificial watermelon, and an anxious smile from the woman in her bed. 

"Are we a go, soldier?" Frankie asks, holding the bedsheets to her chin.

"Yes, Frankie, we are a go," she replies dryly. 

"Hurry up then,” Frankie says earnestly as she turns onto her side. “Before the lava monster that lives under the bed grabs you by the ankles and takes you to live in his badly decorated apartment."

Grace shakes her head in faux annoyance and settles into bed with a long sigh. Beside her, Frankie claps twice, and in automatic response Grace turns off the light.

iv.

_Don't wait up!_ Frankie's text reads. _Staying at Jacob's tonight._

It's followed by a series of emojis that Grace guesses are crass and doesn't care to decipher. She sighs, and it feels like it echoes through the empty house. She was halfway hoping Frankie would roll a joint and they could sit on the beach and smoke together, but it looks like that’s not happening.

A martini will have to do.

It occurs to her as she makes a drink that it’s been awhile since she drank alone. Since before she and Frankie moved in together, at least. It used to be something she enjoyed, a quiet moment to herself when the girls were out or when Robert was working late. Over time, though, it became something darker. A hidden drink before Mallory's high school graduation, or in a junior partner's office at Robert's firm's Christmas party. Always just a drink to get her through, to take the edge off. 

She sits on the couch, now, glass in hand. Frankie's Felix the Cat clock ticks faintly in the background, and for some reason it makes her feel even more alone, makes the drink seem tasteless on her tongue. 

Makes her wish there was a warm body beside her.

She downs the rest, sets the glass on the coffee table, and grabs the blanket off the back of the couch. It smells like Frankie, almost like she's right there next to her. All of a sudden Grace longs to go upstairs, as if the other woman will be there when she does. But even so, there's no way she can sleep in that bed tonight. Not now, not alone with her thoughts, not with the sinking feeling of dread settling into her bones. 

She doesn't fall asleep. Instead she tosses and turns on the couch for what feels like hours, her joints starting to ache with every passing minute. A vision of an eternal loneliness and a cold, empty bed plays out before her every time she closes her eyes, and for the first time since Frankie started sleeping in her bed, Grace takes an Ambien.

v.

She has to get used to sleeping alone again. Has to get used to a cold and empty bed, a TV that doesn't get used. Crumbless sheets and clean floors and quiet nights–the things she thought she wanted, thought made her happy.

Frankie sleeps with Jacob now, and Grace is happy for her, she really is, but to have to reacquaint herself with the silence and the inherent loneliness that settles just beneath her skin is another story. A scary reminder of how little she has, and yet how much she has to lose. She wonders, briefly, when her life got so tightly intertwined with Frankie's, and how it's possible to disentangle when she was just starting to settle in, just starting to sleep through the night.

In the darkness she lies on her side and stares at nothing in particular, eyes wide open and mouth dry. Her brain won't stop running, won't stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. She hears the bedroom door open, a sliver of warm light making its way in through the hallway.

"Grace," she hears Frankie whisper. "You awake?"

Pulled out of her thoughts and feeling a sudden tightness in her chest, she doesn't speak, simply reaches to lift the covers on Frankie's side of the bed as invitation. The message is received, and Frankie slips out of her crocs and into bed, her movements natural as if it were a regular occurrence--which, Grace supposes, it used to be.

Grace lays with her back towards Frankie, and there's shuffling behind her until stillness. Enough time passes that Grace wonders if Frankie has fallen asleep, before a warm hand comes to rest on her shoulder. 

"Jacob wants me to move in with him."

The other shoe drops.

"Well, not just move in with him," Frankie continues. "He wants me to move to Santa Fe, of all places, and they don't even have Del Ta–"

Time seems to slow, and Frankie's voice fades into the background. Grace is all of a sudden back with Robert the night of The Great Coming Out, the intense feeling of abandonment and confusion rushing back like the ocean to the shoreline.

_I thought this was life._

_And I thought there was more._

The tightness in her chest is becoming unbearable. Grace wonders if she will ever be someone's 'more'. If she'll ever be the one to feel too much about someone who feels too much for her in return, rather than someone who only sees her as a stepping stone to something greater. A blip on the path to true love, to an escape, to Santa Fe.

"Grace?" Frankie says. "Grace?"

Grace doesn't respond, keeps her eyes closed tight, tries to even out her breathing. She tries to will this moment away, to go back in time, to change the unchangeable. Eventually, she hears a resigned sigh and a goodnight. Frankie shifts away from her but stays in bed, just out of reach. Grace longs to say something, to reach out. She doesn't. 

She doesn't sleep, either, and in the morning her bed is cold again.

vi.

She feels out of place in her own damn house, feels in the way of whatever full fledged commitment has formed between Frankie and Jacob. They don't care to listen to the medical facts she'd read up on, called the doctor for, wept over. They won't even read her goddamn pamphlets, and instead they're still going to Santa Fe when Grace explicitly told them it wasn't good for Frankie's health.

So she sits on her bathroom floor with a bottle of vodka, replaying her argument with Frankie in her head. She had just wanted to be of some use, just wanted to prove that she was worth staying for, but it turns out she's not enough. She's not Frankie's mother, not her husband, not anything. She's never been enough for anyone, and so she sits on the cold tile floor, sobbing into her knees and trying to push away the panic she feels at the prospect of being alone.

She had watched Frankie almost die today. Had watched her best friend slip out of her grasp right in front of her. Forgive her then, she thinks, for not wanting to let it happen again. For not wanting to lose her to Jacob or Santa Fe or another stroke. It's too late now, though, and there's nothing she can do to make her stay. Frankie’s mind is made up about the future, and it doesn't include her. 

She takes a swig, thinks about hot air balloons, cries some more. If her daughters could see her now, she’s almost certain their heads would explode. Too bad the bottle of Xanax is all the way in the bedroom. She doubts her legs could carry her that far even if she tried, the exhaustion of the day–not to mention the vodka–catching up with her, making her tear swollen eyes droop as she blinks in the harsh lighting.

Grace is tired. She’s tired in a way no amount of sleep can fix, but at least when Frankie was sleeping next to her she felt like she could be rested, somehow. Now, she’s not sure if she’ll ever be fully awake again, and she doesn’t want to think about what that means. Doesn’t want to think about what the thought of life without Frankie means for her heart–what it implies.

In the morning, she wakes up with the imprint of tile grout running across the side of her face, wears dark sunglasses to account for her hangover, avoids Frankie at all costs. She focusses on the business, what needs to get done, what she can do to keep going and find a new purpose, even if solo. She calls Nick back, against her better judgement, and before she knows it she’s off with him on a grand adventure, one where all she does is sip a martini and think of the predicament she’s gotten herself into. And when she sees the balloon waiting for them, everything clicks into place.

vii.

Frankie had disappeared to her studio the minute they’d returned home from their flight, and there hadn’t been much talk once the balloon had landed, either. Nothing but a silent car ride with Grace behind the wheel, trying to humor Frankie by playing one of her Russian folk CDs, which drew an appreciative smirk but not much else. There was a darkness in Frankie’s eyes, Grace thought, that she had never seen before.

Now Grace sits at the foot of her bed, twiddling her thumbs. A declaration of love hadn’t been on her to do list today, but it happened nevertheless. Maybe not in so many words, but it’s as far as she’s ever gotten–more in depth than her wedding vows, that’s for sure. She lets out a shaky exhale, hands on her knees and chin to the ceiling.

In that moment, when they were standing in front of the balloon and faced with the unknowns of where they’d end up, Grace had felt for the first time in her life like she couldn’t hold back any longer. Like the truth had to come out, in whatever form. So she said the stuff about the hats and the songs and the accent, and she meant every word. Turns out when you feel too much, it’s bound to boil over.

And as they floated in the air, as she glanced again and again at Frankie’s hand, longing to reach out and hold it in her own, she made a decision: to not make the decision. To sit back, to let her words speak for themselves, and to take Frankie’s choice for what it was, whether it was for her or for Santa Fe. No matter how hard it would be.

A lot of good that did her, she thinks, sitting alone in the quiet while Frankie has some kind of existential crisis out in the studio. She has a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she turns the TV on for white noise. Ray Donovan is on, and she lets out a humorless chuckle.

"Room for one more?" Frankie says from the doorway, and Grace startles before struggling to find the mute button.

"Depends,” she replies nonchalantly. “Will you let me take your blood pressure?"

“Depends, will you let me eat salt?”

“Touché.”

Frankie moves to sit beside her, and they exist together in silence. Grace doesn’t know what she would say, even if she could find the words, so she keeps quiet. Feigns interest in her cuticles, glances up and down at Ray Donovan. 

“Listen, I’m not one to ignore signs,” Frankie says, finally.

“Except on the freeway,” Grace says under her breath, and Frankie rolls her eyes. “Sorry.”

There’s a pause, as if Frankie is mulling over what to say next, and Grace feels sick, a nervousness setting in that has her halfway to ruining her manicure.

“Come with me,” Frankie says.

Grace looks away, not able to take Frankie’s desperate expression. “You know I can’t do that.”

“What do you mean you can’t do that?” Frankie says, almost pleading. “‘ _Grace and Frankie Take Santa Fe_ ’! I can see the billboards now! Bravo is practically knocking down our door to follow us with video cameras.”

“Frankie–”

“Jacob could build you a guest house,” Frankie raises her hands in defense. “Okay, a shed, technically, but a very _nice_ shed–”

“ _Frankie._ ” Grace says again, firmly, and Frankie’s hands drop, shoulders falling dejectedly.

“I can’t _choose_ ,” she says, and her voice sounds resigned, tired.

Grace shrugs. “And I can’t choose for you.”

A pause.

“So what do we do?” Frankie asks.

Grace smiles in return, moves the hair out of Frankie’s face again, reaches out for her hand like she had wanted to do earlier. She squeezes it, sits up straight, pretends to have the answers she doesn’t.

“We watch television in bed, and we don’t think about it until tomorrow.”

viii.

Grace blinks drowsily against the hint of daylight, and she glances at the clock. 6am. They must have forgotten to close the curtains last night (and to change into their pajamas, apparently, she thinks as she looks down at her jeans and button up). Her arm is numb, and she realizes it’s because Frankie’s using it as a headrest, still sleeping and tucked firmly into her side. A contentedness flows through her all of a sudden, and she watches through the window as the sun rises over the sand.

She’s not sure how long she sits awake before Frankie stirs, scooting even closer to Grace as she opens her eyes and immediately closes them in response to the light.

“Morning, sunshine,” Grace says sarcastically, voice still rough from sleep.

Frankie lets out an annoyed grumble that roughly translates to ‘ _fuck off_ ’, but reaches an arm around Grace’s midriff anyway. Had this happened a month ago, Grace would’ve barrel rolled away from any kind of invasion of personal space, but now she just resituates, mindlessly combs her fingers through Frankie’s hair, takes a deep breath to get herself together. It’s nothing, she tells herself–she might as well be a pillow as far as Frankie’s concerned.

Frankie lets out a deep sigh and opens her eyes again, staring out the window and getting more and more lost in thought as the tide rolls in.

“Care to share with the class?” Grace asks.

Frankie shakes her head, half shrugs. “I can’t do it.” 

Grace nods once, twice, gives herself a second to digest the information. She leans her head against Frankie’s as they watch the seagulls fly over the shore. 

“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

ix.

Frankie breaks it off with Jacob, and she doesn’t mention it again, just climbs into Grace’s bed at the end of the day without a word, sends a glance in her direction that says _I can’t be alone right now._

In the morning they have breakfast with the kids, and Brianna does nothing but stare at Grace over her mimosa the entire time, even when Alison breaks the news that she’s pregnant. Frankie immediately launches into rapid fire questions about doulas and birthing playlists and cloth diapers, and Brianna stands, throwing some bullshit reason for her mother to help her with something in the kitchen over her shoulder. Grace squeezes Frankie’s thigh under the table before she follows.

“Okay, so we gonna pretend this isn’t weird as fuck?” Brianna says as Grace enters the kitchen.

“What, Bud and Alison?” Grace asks, looking over her shoulder. “It is strange. I mean, who would’ve figured that girl’s body could handle a tree nut, let alone an embryo?”

“No no no, Mom, listen,” Brianna says. “Frankie and the yam farmer. I need details.”

Grace shrugs, wheels spinning. “You know Frankie. She has a routine here, friends, family. She just joined a dumpster diving club that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, maybe she didn’t want to miss it.”

“What, they don’t have trash in Santa Fe?” Brianna narrows her eyes. “You know something, don’t you? You know something and you’re keeping it from your only child.”

“Brianna, you are _not_ my only child.”

“Semantics.”

It’s here that Frankie approaches, a hand on Grace’s lower back as she asks, “Where’s my Yo-Yo Ma CD? I want to prove that I can add a sick beat to it and play it for Alison’s stomach so the baby comes out smart _and_ rhythmically inclined.”

Mindlessly, Grace responds, “By the bed, in the Willy Wonka DVD case.”

Frankie’s brow furrows. “Where’s the Willy Wonka DVD?”

“You broke it in half to get the last bit of peanut butter out of the jar.”

“Ah, right-o,” Frankie says, and she runs to the stairs, clogs taking two steps at a time. 

“Ohhh my god,” Brianna breaks in. “You’re sleeping with Frankie.”

“What? Brianna don’t be ridiculous,” Grace replies.

“I’m just gonna.. put my head between my knees. Breathe into a paper bag for a second.”

“Oh, would you quit being so dramatic?”

Brianna holds onto the edge of the counter for dear life. “Is it breathe in for eight and hold for four, or breathe in for four and hold for eight? Jesus, I think I’m going to pass out.”

“You are not. Now listen,” Grace starts. “Yes, Frankie and I have been sleeping in the same bed _platonically_. No, I don’t know why Frankie chose to stay, and no, it’s not all some grand gay scheme. Also, yes, it _is_ in for four and hold for eight.”

Brianna just blinks. “Why would Frankie sleep in your bed?”

Grace shrugs. “She has on and off since the break in, I guess it makes her feel safe.”

“But the break in was weeks ago.”

“It’s _Frankie_ ,” Grace says in way of explanation. “It took her months to accept that Twinkies were discontinued, and at least they came back eventually.”

Brianna doesn’t look so convinced. “And you’re sure that’s the _only_ reason.”

“Positive.”

“Got it!” Frankie’s voice sounds from the top of the stairs. “Get ready for DJ Bergie to make your heads spin.”

Grace smiles at her, rolls her eyes as she watches her try to beatbox to Yo-Yo Ma. Alison starts to look more and more uncomfortable, but Grace supposes it could be any number of allergic reactions.

Brianna makes another mimosa, slowly, and whispers in her mother’s ear on her way back to the table. “Seems pretty gay to me.”

x.

She loves her. God, she loves her.

And it’s stupid. Fucking _moronic_ is what it is. To be in love with someone who drives her so crazy, who makes her so frustrated and exasperated and...infatuated, against her better judgement. Because Frankie is everything Grace isn’t. She’s her exact opposite, someone whose relationship to her makes absolutely no sense on paper, recycled or otherwise. But she’s also her best friend and her business partner and the only person she’d ever want to go to Trader Joe’s with at 5pm on a Friday. 

So here she is, awake in the middle of the night. Again. Trying to find sleep but unable to in the wake of the floodgates of realization opening and drenching her in stupid feelings that were probably better kept locked up. Racking her brain for any possible reason Frankie would want to pick her over Jacob.

After all, Frankie was _born_ for Santa Fe. She would’ve had the time of her life there, with the goats and the rocks and the Jacob. And she had stayed here for what, to fight with Grace about whether or not to put socks on before or after your pants? To sneak easy open condoms onto the shelves at Target, only to get kicked out and not allowed back in?

That’s not to say Grace isn’t happy, isn’t over the moon that she’s won’t be alone, isn’t comforted knowing she won’t spend the rest of her life by herself in a house that reminds her of Frankie at every turn. It’s just that it all doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t make sense unless–

“Why’d you stay?” Grace hears herself say into the dark, unsure if Frankie’s even awake.

There’s no response for a long time, until, “Del Taco. And you.”

And it’s simple, easy, inherently Frankie. Something she said blearily, probably only half awake, but it still soothes Grace’s soul. Makes her feel like she can breathe again, like she didn’t steal something that wasn’t hers. 

She rolls onto her side, tries to make out the shape of Frankie’s face in the darkness. She’s slept here for six days in a row, and somehow Grace doubts she could get rid of her now even if she tried. Which she won’t.

Sleep only comes to her when Frankie’s next to her, now, and if that’s not the most full circle bullshit she’s ever experienced she doesn’t know what is. But it makes her feel lighter somehow, just the same. _No fear_ she repeats in her head, and she faces Frankie, their noses almost touching as they share the same air.

So, she loves her. What else is new.

xi.

She locks the doors, checks the windows, leaves the downstairs lamp on. They don’t turn on NPR anymore, and there are no booby traps (to Grace’s knowledge, at least). The only shoes outside the front door are the clogs Frankie got covered in sand during their morning walk on the beach.

It’s easy now, with her, changing every day and evolving to be something more. Different since the night Frankie jokingly asked again if Grace wanted her to do stuff to her, which Grace replied to with a shy and unexpected, “ _Maybe._ ”

They’re still _them_ , even after everything. Frankie’s still exasperating and Grace is still exasperated. But Frankie reads the pamphlets, takes the doctor’s advice to heart, makes the decision not to live in fear. Grace’s room is now _theirs_ and it’s filled with a combination of mid-century modern furniture and Frankie’s late night eBay purchases, their closet filled half with couture and half with Value Village. And as much as it drives Grace crazy, it also makes her proud. Like she built something from the ground up, nurtured it and watched it grow.

After completing the checklist, Grace goes back upstairs. She finds Frankie already in bed, focussing on a Magic Eye book and trying to find the image she insists is never there even though it is.

“Remember we have a meeting with Nick tomorrow,” Grace says, dealing out her medication on her bedside table.

Frankie groans. “Ugh, that weasel.”

Grace doesn’t disagree, just takes her reading glasses off and hands them to Frankie mindlessly, who uses them to try and suss out the hidden image in her book.

“This is bullshit, there’s never anything there,” Frankie insists.

Grace glances over her shoulder. “It’s a gorilla,” she says, and Frankie almost screams in frustration.

“Listen, I know we’re like, a _thing_ now,” Frankie says as she closes the book, tossing it unceremoniously onto her nightstand. “But don’t think for a second I won’t report you to the witch hunters.”

Grace smirks, pats Frankie’s arm lovingly, thanks whatever higher power there may or may not be for a second chance like this. The waves crash outside and the TV plays at a low volume, Frankie’s eyes already drooping. Grace reaches for the remote and turns it off to sleepy protests that don’t really mean anything.

She settles in, turns over, watches Frankie pop a piece of gum into her mouth that will most certainly be stuck in one of their hair by morning.

She kisses her goodnight.


End file.
